Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and their ancestors and histories. Genealogy research requires using primary sources about family connections. This topic guide emphasizes local genealogy research. Most genealogy research support is provided by Special Collections and University Archives staff.

Genealogy research databases

Ancestry Library Edition
Ancestry Library Edition is an academic version of ancestry.com. Contains coverage of the U.S. and the U.K., including census, vital, church, court, and immigration records, as well as record collections from Canada and other areas. A collection of more than 4,000 databases and 1.5 billion names including U.S. federal census images and indexes from 1790 to 1940; the Map Center containing more than 1,000 historical maps; American Genealogical Biographical Index (over 200 volumes), Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage (over 150 volumes), The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1630, Social Security Death Index, WWI Draft Registration Cards, Federal Slave Narratives, and a Civil War collection.
Answers await everyone—whether professional or hobbyist, expert or novice, genealogist or historian—inside the more than 7,000 available databases. Here, you can unlock the story of you with sources like censuses, vital records, immigration records, family histories, military records, court and legal documents, directories, photos, maps, and more.
Biography and Genealogy Master Index from Gale
Biography and Genealogy Master Index enables users to locate biographical entries contained in more than 1,000 volumes and editions of important current and retrospective biographical reference sources. This index contains citations that point to over 15 million biographies on nearly 5 million people, living and deceased, from all time periods, geographical locations, and fields of endeavor.
Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System from the National Parks Service
Contains basic facts about servicemen who served on both sides of the Civil War. Facts are from records that are indexes of other documents about Union and Confederate Civil War soldiers maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration. Also includes histories of regiments in both the Union and Confederate Armies and descriptions of 384 significant battles of the war. Currently contains over 6 million soldier names from 44 states and territories.
Archival Resources of the Virginias
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Virginia Heritage indexes finding aids (collection descriptions) to manuscripts and archival materials held by libraries across Virginia. These finding aids may link to digitized versions of these materials, but the majority of these collections have not yet been digitized. 1607-present.
American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography
American Slavery contains both an overview of the collection of former slave narratives with related links (available without charge from the home page) and the collection of narratives themselves. Each narrative is delivered as a PDF as originally transcribed, with some interviews available as sound files. Searchable by name of narrator, interviewer, or master, the county or state where the narrator lived in slavery, the narrator's age or year of birth, or the location of the material in the print version (volume and page). 1920s-1940s (original interviews).
The American Slavery database contains two basic sections: the overview of the collection with related links, available without charge from the home page, and the collection itself. The overview includes a description of the original Library of Congress project, a history of the project, the introduction and appendices to the initial Rawick compilation, and selections from his analysis of the collection, From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Follow the 'About the Collection' link to access this material.
Archival Research Catalog
ARC is the online catalog of the National Archives' nationwide holdings. This catalog displays descriptions of record groups and collections, series, file units, and items. Some content has been digitized, including historical documents, photographs, and images.
Access to Archival Databases (AAD)
Provides access to records preserved permanently by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Out of the nearly 200,000 data files in its holdings, NARA has selected approximately 475 of them for public searching through AAD. These data were selected because the records identify specific persons, geographic areas, organizations, and dates. The records cover a wide variety of civilian and military functions and have many genealogical, social, political, and economic research uses. 1800s-present.
ArchiveGrid from WorldCat
ArchiveGrid indexes descriptions of archival material (such as we keep in our Special Collections) in libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives. Contact information for the source archive is provided.
ArchiveGrid is a collection of nearly two million archival material descriptions, including MARC records from WorldCat and finding aids harvested from the web. It's supported by OCLC Research as the basis for our experimentation and testing in text mining, data analysis, and discovery system applications and interfaces. Archival collections held by thousands of libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives are represented in ArchiveGrid.
ArchiveGrid provides access to detailed archival collection descriptions, making information available about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and other archival materials. It also provides contact information for the institutions where the collections are kept.
ArchiveGrid data is primarily focused on archival material descriptions for institutions in the United States. This reflects the contribution patterns for descriptions of materials under archival control in WorldCat, which make up the majority of descriptions in ArchiveGrid.